end of the year conundrum

i'm about to embark on something wonderful. something every teacher dreams of for 9 months out of the year. something everyone has experienced in their lifetime at least 13 times:

the last day of school.
oh the joy of the last day of school! this weekend chad and i are surprising his family in milwaukee for memorial day; a post summarizing what i expect to be a beautiful weekend is to come. after this lovely weekend, we have 7, yes 7, days of school left. one of which is spent going to valleyfair, so my kids aren't even 'counting' it. it's finally time. i can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. finally!

so why the conundrum? well...here's the thing... i'm just as excited as my kids to get out of this place for 3 months. they can sense it. i can sense their excitement. everyone is loud and things are moderately chaotic, and my soon-to-be-graduated 8th graders have checked out long ago. so, of course, i do the best thing possible: i assign all of my english classes extremely large research papers for their end of year assignment. they're going to be good papers. they're going to show me that my kids have learned something and grown over the last year. they're going to show me exactly what i'm looking for from these kids...

...as soon as i correct them. yikes! what did i get myself into!?

"let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." galatians 6:9.

(thanks to chad's momma for texting me this the other day in encouragement for completion of this year)